Romania's economy minister Mihai Fifor has been moved to head the defence ministry, after former minister Adrian Tutuianu resigned last week. Fifor was replaced by Gheorghe Simon, who took over the economy portfolio.

The mini-reshuffle took place after Tutuianu resigned on September 5 amid a spat between the defence and finance ministries over the payment of military salaries. He is also rumoured to have clashed with the leader of the ruling Social Democratic Party (PSD), Liviu Dragnea.

His replacement will have to handle Romania’s military upgrade plans. Romania, a Nato member, has pledged to allocate 2% of its GDP to defence per year. Last month, Romania’s Supreme Council of National Defence (CSAT) approved a €9.8bn defence spending package for the period 2017-2026 aimed at upgrading the country’s military.

Announcing the new appointments, Dragnea stressed that Fifor is a safe pair of hands to take over the ministry at a critical point. 

“Both [economy and defence] are important positions and eventually the joint decision which we have presented to our colleagues was Mihai Fifor, because he is a responsible man, he has the advantage that in the last months he worked at the economy ministry as a minister, we travelled through the country, he saw the economic objectives and in this period he worked a lot with the defence ministry for the defence industry,” the PSD leader said. 

Fifor was proposed in 2015 by former prime minister Victor Ponta for the position of transport minister, according to News.ro. However, President Klaus Iohannis declined to endorse him as a minister, claiming “he does not have the expertise and managerial experience to manage the complex transport field”.

Gheorghe Simon, the new economy minister, is a PSD MP and the vice president of the party’s Maramures county branch.